What should have been a shared moment of understanding spiraled into confusion and hurt, revealing the fragile undercurrents that often lie beneath the surface of daily family life. In that charged silence, the weight of exhaustion and unmet expectations hung heavy, threatening to unravel the delicate balance they fought so hard to maintain.
I (33F) have 4 kids with my husband (35M), and our kids are all 4 or under so it’s a handful (4F, 3F, 3F, and 1M). A few nights ago after I had been taking care of the kids all day just like usual, dinner just ended and the kids were all settled down for the first time that day so I asked my husband if he could just watch over them while I go shower because truth be told, it had been around 2 days since I last got the chance to take a shower so naturally when I got the chance, I took it.
But instead of my him agreeing to simply make sure they don’t kill eachother, he got upset which I didn’t even realize. So I went and took a shower, spent 20 minutes TOPS so it really wasn’t a long time.
When I got out my husband was clearly pissed for whatever reason. Which to me made no sense because all of the kids were almost completely silent which was a miracle but I thought maybe his day at work was bad so I asked him what was wrong.
He said that “he couldn’t belive” that I would ask him to watch the kids after he had such a long day at work, which completely shocked me. He then proceeded to complain about how they annoyed him the entire time I was in the shower and now he’s not going to have any time to relax before bed.
I didn’t even think it through at first but I immediately felt bad and apologized because that’s just what made sense to my mine in the moment. Later after I finished cleaning up the house a bit, I dont know what made me do it but something just made me want to check to cameras to see if he was telling the truth, he wasn’t.
All I saw on the cameras while I was gone was my oldest playing around with the baby (not making too much noise) and the 2 others just drawing, they didn’t bother him at all, and that pissed me off because he lied and made me apologize for no reason.
I immediately confronted him about it and he just said that it didn’t matter and I shouldn’t have done it knowing he was working all day, which only got me even angrier but I wasn’t about to start an argument in front of our kids so I just simply told him he could sleep on the couch that night, which resulted me and the kids having a little sleepover in our room.
Since this whole situation happened a few days ago he’s clearly still mad at me and barely has even spoken to me since. I tried talking to some family but they think I mightve overreacted, AITAH?
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) found herself in a conflict stemming from a simple request for personal time to meet a basic hygiene need after extensive childcare duties. Her initial reaction was to apologize based on her husband’s complaint, but this was undermined when she discovered he had misrepresented the children’s behavior while she was occupied. The central conflict lies between the OP’s valid need for self-care and her husband’s expectation that his work day exempts him from shared parental responsibilities, compounded by dishonesty.
Given the husband’s deceptive behavior and subsequent cold shoulder, the core question for consideration is whether the OP was justified in confronting him about the lie and enforcing a boundary (sleeping separately), or if her decision to check the cameras and punish him constituted an overreaction that damaged the marital trust more than his initial complaint.
Here’s how people reacted:
He sees his work as a million things and “take care of the kids” as one thing. And an unworthy one thing at that.
What’s crazy is that he’s mentally categorized child care as “not work” for you to have done all day while ALSO categorized it as “too much hassle” for him to do after work.
Tonight take the baby for a walk in the stroller and leave your phone home. With him. And the three other kids. Walk about thirty minutes. Do this daily until he repents of thinking kids aren’t work for you while also thinking they are too much work for him to deal with after “a long day”.
All days are long days when you have four kids!!
I raised five kids and my husband would get home from working at walmart all day, take the baby and say “want me to draw a bath for you?” Hell if I was clearly stressing out he’d go start one and come get me and take me to the bathroom and tell me to go soak and bring me tea. You have a very selfish very disconnected husband. I’m sorry.
Parenting is a 24/7 job. That’s just the reality of it. If that is your primary job great that’s fine. It was for me o worked from home and was the main one with the kids all day. But I couldn’t be doing a 24 hour job and him a 15 hour job and so he gets “a break” and I get nothing. That’s not fair not even a little bit. I’ll bet he doesn’t even get up with the baby and help with night feeds eh?
Look y’all need to have a serious serious conversation. You can’t be on call 168 hours a week with zero hours to mentally decompress. Sit down and talk that through.
Hire a babysitter or get Mom or Friend or Sister or anyone to watch the kids. Go to the park together. Explain about yeah I know you work a hard many hours a week. I’m on call 168 hours a week and I think we can both agree that’s not reasonable or sustainable. So what is a fair amount of time for us to have you primary over the kids when you come home so I can decompress, catch up on personal hygiene, etc? Two hours is reasonable. One hour is minimum sustainable in my experience.
My husband would use the wrestle the kids for an hour time AS his decompress time. Yeah it was tough but so much easier than what he dealt with at work he came to see that just-home-kid-melee and at the door mob as a kings welcome. 🙂 they loved mob him at the door and he’d growl and chase and tickle monster them it was noisy and chaotic and messy and brilliant. Because I would just slip away and prune the garden or shower (or sometimes both!!) and get my hour or two of peace.
His down time starts when the kids are in bed. Just like yours does. Because he’s not just “a worker”. He’s a dad.
1. Did you make these kids yourself? No
2. Helping with the kids is not help.. they’re his kids, it’s not helping since he also has the responsibility to contribute regardless if he has been working.
3. You created this environment and now you just change it. Which is going to result in arguing because your husband doesn’t wa t to be a father. He sees his kids as if they are someone else’s kids.
4. His time became his time only. You have been stripped of self caring of yourself.
5. Find a middle ground, tell him you need to do your part with raising these kids. Your day off will be spent with the children while you have a self care day.
He’s a lazy man child who seems to like procreating but not parenting. Please remind him 1) you exist and 2) if you don’t want his kids to forget he does some day when you divorce him 3) he should step up now. What a useless adult he is.
Wake up, buddy, parenting is 24/7 job. It’s his children, not his neighbor’s. What, he expected you to never watch after them? Lmao. Why did he made 4 kids if he doesn’t want to spend 20 minutes in the same room with them?
NTA. Mam, I am sorry but you have 5 kids actually cause that is a manbaby.
When your Husband is at work, he is fulfilling his role as a worker. He is NOT being a husband or a father when he is working. When he comes home from work, it is then his role to BE the husband and the father. Those are his obligations that he has chosen for himself when he married you and agreed to have children.
He needs a wake up call as if he is this bad of a dad then it will majority impact the kids in so many ways ways growing up. Please really think about that if he is
For now ignore the fact that he, too, is a parent and needs to behave like one, not a child.
If you want to resolve this he needs to tell you what he was really upset about.
This is assuming he can be an engaged father, at other times.
What a pig of a man.
I cant believe men are so selfish and such assholes.
If my hb had behaved like that? Seriously, we would have been divorced. Our marriage would not have survived thar sort of shit.
Everything before and after that, including nights, is a shared responsibility. If he gets 30 minutes of me time, you get the same.
He’s their father. When he’s home, he’s just as responsible for them as you.
It’s time for him to grow and act like a parent. And please, stop having children with him until he learns how to be a parent to the ones he already has.
What a piece of garbage this man child is. I doubt therapy is going to fix this one.
– he shouldn’t “help” you, he’s their parent too
– you shouldn’t have even asked, you should have got up and gone for a shower. It’s a basic need to take care of yourself and he’s not your substitute, he’s the dad
https://archive.org/download/LundyWhyDoesHeDoThat/Lundy_Why-does-he-do-that.pdf
You have FIVE kids.
Imagine bregrudging your wife 20 FUCKING MINUTES **so she can take care of her personal hygiene**.
NTA
But why would you have multiple children with someone like this?